Strobing lights. Pulsing music. Scantily clad women dancing on bar tops. Streets teeming with empty-eyed men, strolling tourists, families with small children gawking and laughing at the spectacle. Stepping onto Bangla Road in Patong City was the closest thing I have experienced on this earth to walking into the pit of hell. Just another typical night on Bangla Road, the street that never sleeps or closes. On our first night on Bangla road, my team and I visited 3 different bars, ordering sodas and engaging the women at each place in conversation. All of the bars in Patong City supply games to play while you sit and drink, so ironically most of our evening consisted of playing Jenga and Connect 4 with prostitutes. Oh the irony of reverting to the things of childhood in a place where all traces of childhood have been stripped away. That first night we were able to make connections with several of the women, learning about their lives, their families, their boyfriends, how they hate their jobs but feel there is no way out. While shocked that we were not drinking, the women were responsive to our extension of friendship, a few even agreeing to go shopping with us on a Monday afternoon. As we hugged the women goodbye that night, I saw in their eyes that they doubted they would ever see us again, as I’m sure is their experience with most customers. Use and get out…that’s the policy on Bangla Road. Bonnie and I made our way through the crowds to a bar we had visited before, wanting to spend some more time with Summer* and Samara*, two of the young women we had promised we would come visit again. I’ll never be able to erase from my memory the scene that took place in the bar that night. As Bonnie and I approached, I saw Samara jump off her bar stool with a look of sheer delight, surprise and joy as she squealed “Marlena!! Bonnie!!” and ran to embrace us. Summer wasn’t far behind, running on Samara’s heels to wrap her arms around our necks and exlaim how happy she was that we had come back. Something fell into place in my spirit in that moment, like the clicking of a key in a lock, filling my head with the knowledge that these women were my sisters, filling my heart with a love as such I have never experienced before for a near-complete stranger. The second after this turning of the key, I realized that Samara had hopped off a bar stool that was already held captive by a customer at the accompanying stool who was waiting impatiently for the return of his prize. Samara returned to her seat quickly after our brief exchange, and Summer led us to a couple stools a few feet away. For a moment I was frozen, able to do nothing but stare at my newfound sister and her “date” with what I’m sure was an expression that could have melted glass. The man couldn’t have been more than 24 years old, and if I’m honest looked like someone I could have easily sat next to in class or seen at the Porch or bumped shoulders with at a North Dallas coffee shop. He was my age. He was clean cut and respectable looking. And somewhere in his thirsty soul he felt like he could find satisfaction in the arms of a woman, my sister, who he had purchased. The evening passed with Summer and Na*, who strangely enough was the daughter of the bar owner, a bar that was named after Na’s 5 year-old daughter. Two mothers in one bar, one of them smiling as her daughter attended to customers, the other speaking with fondness about her little girl sleeping in a room above, a little girl who would most likely grow up to work in her namesake bar. The 4 of us played multiple rounds of Connect 4, laughing and smiling and talking, but my eyes were stealing glances at Samara and her customer every few minutes, my heart splitting open inside my chest at the sight of the mask she so carefully tried to hold in place, though it slipped every so often into a look of despair each time the man glanced away. The time came for Bonnie and I to leave, so we hugged the necks of our sisters and promised to return on Tuesday evening. I walked down Bangla Road in a daze, wondering for a moment what exactly it was that I was doing down in this Devil’s playground. That’s when I heard so clearly a whisper inside my head… Marlena, if I had walked the earth in your lifetime this is exactly where I would be. I would be here in the pit of hell, because it’s the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy. And I AM here, I’m here every night and see exactly what you see, on top of so much more. I know how your heart is weeping for your sisters, because mine is weeping even more for my daughters. I don’t have a happy ending yet to this story. I went back to Starbucks and cried before going home to sleep. Summer and Samara and Na will be working at the bar tonight, and the next night, and every night after that until they realize that there is an open door for them to leave through. But a happy ending is coming, I know it’s on the horizon about to break forth as our squad’s cries for justice and freedom are sent up to the heavens in earthshattering tones. Join us in prayer for these men and women.
Thai women line the streets at the open mouths of the bars, beckoning men and women to come inside and enjoy the revelry their bar has to offer. All the while men wave cash at the bar owners, exchanging a few hundred Baht for a night with one of the employees.
This month, R-squad is partnering with an organization in Phuket, Thailand, that offers these women a way off the streets, giving them employment opportunities by teaching them trades such as baking and jewelry making. Thai women also have the opportunity to live at the center, which serves as a safe house. So in the next 3 weeks, the 35 men and women of my squad have been given the chance to not only mentor and work with the women here at the center who have been rescued off the streets, but also to go and seek out relationships with the prostitutes of Bangla road and offer them a different way of life.
Our second night at the bars was a Saturday, and the difference in the air was palpable. Men were out in swarms, the music was louder & the lights brighter, the ladyboy costumes more flambouyant.
I tried to keep my mind from wandering into the realm of what the rest of the night held for Samara.
Walk alongside us down Bangla Road.
May my sisters be sold no longer.
(*names changed)
